Symbol

Fiction writers are admonished to “show, don’t tell.” In folk music (and in its conceptual videos), one hears and sees both.

More, from his Metalogues:

“What did you mean by a conversation having an outline? Has this conversation had an outline?”

Oh, surely, yes. But we cannot see it yet because the conversation isn’t finished. You cannot ever see it while you’re in the middle of it. Because if you could see it, you would be predictable – like the machine. And I would be predictable – and the two of us together would be predictable -

“But I don’t understand. You say it is important to be clear about things. And you get angry about people who blur the outlines. And yet we think it’s better to be unpredictable and not to be like a machine. And you say that we cannot see the outlines of our conversation till it’s over. Then it doesn’t matter whether we’re clear or not. Because we cannot do anything about it then.”

Yes, I know – and I don’t understand it myself . . . but anyway, who wants to *do* anything about it.

Interestingly, Bateson heavily influenced violinist/multimedia artist Stephen Nachmanovitch (who wrote Free Play, a stunning book that electrified C. in the late ’90s).